Yoga Orgasm? Anyone?

﻿﻿﻿“If you don’t experience an orgasm here–in dance–you won’t experience it in life.”

Last night my brown, stunning yoga teacher gave me an ultimatum in a class she was invited to substitute. Or perhaps, she spoke to the other four women who, just like I, had no idea what just hit them. Because you see, we were expecting to be in the midst of level 1/2 of bending and twisting ourselves past the mind’s resistance, just so some of us could land in our bodies, while I very much desired to step out of it: Out of the mind that has been thrashing about like a captured wild cat for the last–oh, I don’t know–lifetime. Instead, there she stood: killer looks–a fucking Kama Sutra goddess, picture-perfect stunner; clad in jewel tones, with her Indian hair cascading down the perfect caramel-colored skin in waves that her arms would soon imitate; with her magnificent chest thrusted forward–as was her heart–with zero shame, apology or self-negation. Her bare dancer feet clasped the Mother Earth with every sinew like roots: With those alone, she could kick the living lights out of an opponent–or to hold her ground like no one’s business.

When the goddess began to speak, her hands mirrored the poses of Shiva the figurine of which overlooked from a shelf suspended above her head:

“I mostly–(always)–work with women.” She jotted out of one of her hips to the side revealing a silky, hip-hugging pair of underwear that made me drool; then shot her eyes in my direction and cracked a smile that bitch-slapped my soul with memories of my Indian best friend and every other woman I have ever loved. “So: Welcome, Amazons!”

“Shit. You gonna be like that, huh?” I thought, already feeling the itch in my tear ducts.

From that point on, I didn’t even have enough time, my comrades, to conjure a resistance in the form of fear or embarrassment; for I was already smitten into submission. As were the other pale, exhausted women in the room. Where ever this Indian dancer-turned-teacher would lead us–it surely could not be a place of depriving our best interests and needs.

She began reminding us to breathe–alas, so simple!–from the very ovaries; and on every exhale, she demanded to hear our voices. At first, the choir was timid; but how could we disobey the force and the beauty channelled through a core of a woman who has obviously suffered enough to devote her entire life to suffering no more? Eventually, the voices grew. Some women moaned. Others–yelled hysterically past the tension of their exhausted vocal cords. (How the fuck did we all become so appropriate?) The young girl on a mat behind me, who seemed imprisoned by her self-pity, yelped even if mostly out of frustration and misunderstanding–but at least she made a noise. I–hollered!

On her hands and knees, the goddess cat cowed her strong back; and with every vertebra’s shift, her magnificent behind lifted up and apart. The thong rode up her back and imitated the arches of her hip bones. I thought of motherhood.

“Remember that 5-year old girl before your parents told you to be an adult?” the goddess read my mind. “Or maybe they were right–and told you you were magnificent.”

In the child’s pose, she spoke of the Mother. In the chair pose, she reached her arms forward and wiggled her fingers while writing metaphors of rain and petals of jasmine that the women of her country braid into their hair. Everything about her–was woman. Every transition–was sex. She made us pulsate and jive. Thrust, ride, release. Touch, caress, hold, clasp, reach, fall down. In dance, she ordered me to take down my hair. In stillness, she taught me about the perineum. (Who knew there was a yoga pose for that?!) When breathing, she demanded awareness toward the pelvis and the womb–a loaded area inhabited, as I am convinced, by my own issues with motha.

“Yoga is a very masculine practice,” the cutie gave a brutal breakdown from her home front. What cultural barriers did she have to overcome to be here? to be this? “Everything is about resistance. I want you to unleash.”

No problem, honey. From day one of this fucking year has been about unleashing. This year, I, myself, have been all woman–all sex–all hair, and substance, and sweat; finally and fully. I have shaken off the corpses of the past relationships that have slowed down my step for the last years of my second decade. Why am I carrying this shit around, I thought; then deleted, unwelcomed, cut out–cut off–and finally said my au revoirs to the dead weight. When lighter, immediately the art began to happen. As if past the broken levees, the words have flooded in. Who the fuck am I to hold myself back? Who the hell gave me the right to fear? to resist? to worry? And: I have been unleashing ever since. Speaking up and out. Resurrecting the 5-year old who had no problems with her voice. Writing songs and odes and pamphlets on the topics that make others wince or giggle, or, better yet, to run the fuck away. Yet, I continue, for the sake of the honorable few that stick around, listen up, and even change; and those few make it all worth it. So, yes, my earthly Shiva: because I have called you out, I shall obey your command and unleash–and embrace my orgasms, wherever they happen.